MOUSSE T., MUSIC PRODUCER
His most important products are creative distinctiveness and original ideas: Mousse T. works in the creative sector – as an internationally sought-after music producer and disc jockey he is cranking up the German creative industry. The creative class – publishers, gallerists, film producers and designers – are ensuring that the culture economy in Germany booms: sizeable growth rates, high turnover, employment potential. Creative persons like Mousse T. ensure the economic dynamism of an often underestimated branch of industry. His discography reads like a Who’s Who of pop music – from the Backstreet Boys to the Fugees, from Simply Red to Zucchero. Stars from the world of music come to his studio in Hanover so that he can compose new sounds at his mixing console just for them, combining rhythms that simply grab you. Mousse T., the hit guarantor: his remix of Tom Jones’ Sex Bomb was a huge market success, selling more than 20 million copies. The 40-year-old made his breakthrough as a solo artist in 1998 with his single Horny. That same year he was the first ever European to be nominated in the United States for a Grammy as the best remixer. At the age of 13, this son of a Turkish doctor learned to play his first musical instrument, an electric organ – because it was cooler than a piano. Later as a DJ he discovered electronic beats. His rise to fame on the dance floor had begun. “I need artists who inspire me, point me in a direction I wouldn’t normally take myself,” says Mousse T in connection with his search for sounds. These days he heads off to Los Angeles for video shoots, to studios in New York, and spins discs in clubs on Mykonos. But the “global citizen” – Mousse T. on Mousse T. – has remained faithful to his homeland. He has long since become a successful entrepreneur in the music industry with his own Hanover hit workshop, the label Peppermint Jam Records. www.mousse-t.de
REGINA ZIEGLER, FILM PRODUCER
She has been nominated for both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe, she received the Golden Lion in Venice and the Adolf-Grimme Prize for her life’s work, and the Museum of Modern Art honoured her with a retrospective: Regina Ziegler is Germany’s most successful film and television producer. Her list of prize-winning films is long, her productions are seen by millions. The 63-year-old has produced approximately 400 cinema and television films, series and documentaries since founding her company, Ziegler Film, in 1973. She single-handedly promoted her career and today runs one of the largest independent production companies in Germany, with offices in Berlin, Cologne and Munich, turnover measured in the tens of millions and 28 employees. Ziegler is an established name in the film business and she has asserted herself in this male domain through her intrepid optimism and courage. Her rise to fame has been true to her motto: “If I walk through the desert I want to leave tracks.” She believes culture and commerce do not contradict. “Film, for me, is a mixture of art and business,” says Ziegler. She is said to be a stubborn and impulsive entrepreneur with a preference for the colour red. The question is whether she inherited her feel for appealing screenplays and convincing actors and directors from her father. He used to find water veins with a divining rod. www.ziegler-film.com
BENEDIKT TASCHEN, PUBLISHER
Photographer Helmut Newton called him “mad”; he calls himself a “perfectionist”. His credo: to make the best of whatever it is he is doing. And Benedikt Taschen has certainly got a lot to do. The 47-year-old caused quite a stir on the international book market with his publishing house, which is located in a late 19th century villa in Cologne. High print-runs and low prices was the recipe for success with which Taschen has made art books internationally popular and affordable. He sells almost 20 million art books a year and has his own shops in Paris, Los Angeles and Berlin. According to Taschen, one of his books crosses a shop counter somewhere in the world every two seconds. His first art publication, in 1984, a Magritte book, sold like hot cakes. The idea behind his business was born. Today its range of books is as colourful as its founder: Taschen has published erotic photography and the Luther Bible, a 34-kilogram illustrated volume about boxing legend Muhammad Ali, and a splendid and weighty tome on Helmut Newton. For Benedikt Taschen, books are not just books, “They are like water, absolutely vital.” He thinks the same about art. It is energy which charges him like a battery. www.taschen.com
JUDY LYBKE, GALLERIST
Museums like the MoMA in New York show exhibitions of his artists, and US collectors accept long waiting lists and the highest prices for paintings by his artists. Gerd Harry Lybke’s business sense and marketing talent in the art world have made him Germany’s most successful gallerist. This busy man in his mid-40s, whom his friends call Judy, is the patron behind the scenes of the internationally successful Leipzig School. Its most famous representative Neo Rauch was discovered by Lybke. It’s an exciting art story. In GDR times, Lybke just about made his living as a nude model and took his first steps as a gallerist – in his Leipzig apartment. Today, the Galerie Eigen + Art in Leipzig and Berlin is his artistic centre of gravity. This is the place from which he arranges for his artists to go to the big shows, the place where collectors and curators from all over the world come to see him. www.eigen-art.com
JETTE JOOP, DESIGNER
She is driven by her talent. “I have to create, otherwise I’m not happy,” says Jette Joop about her need to work. And she designs just about everything: clothes, jewelry and perfumes, bags, shoes, shower accessories and bedclothes. The 39-year-old has even provided design ideas for whole houses, from the ground plan to the bathroom decoration. As a child she played with pins and buttons, tinkered about, painted and formed voluminous figures. Her father, the famous fashion designer Wolfgang Joop, says of his daughter that she was stubbornly creative at a young age. At 17 she went to Oxford, finished school there, studied industrial design in California and worked in New York City as a designer for Ralph Lauren and the luxury jewelry designer Barry Dieselstein-Cord. “Discipline is important if things are to function,” says Jette Joop. Under her own steam and with a lot of diligence she has developed herself and her collections. This multi-fashion entrepreneur, with a company based in Hamburg, has long since launched her own brand on the market and betrays a talent not only for designing, but for marketing and modelling. Often this attractive tall blonde is an ad for her own products. Glamour is ok, but she does not regard herself as the jet-set type. She says she is a serious person, and sees the meaning of life in gaining and passing on knowledge. As a professor of industrial design and a children’s ambassador for the Red Cross, she has also demonstrated her talent in these areas. www.jette.eu
CHRIS BANGLE, DESIGNER
His idiom is that of immaculate forms and perfect lines. Chris Bangle is head designer at BMW – the creative engine of Germany’s third largest automobile manufacturer. Be it a limousine, a coupé, a compact car or an SUV, Bangle’s sense of form and his feeling for customers’ tastes have determined the success of the car company, which achieved a turnover of almost 50 billion euros in 2006. The Bavarian brand gets its unmistakable image from the ideas and working methods of this “body artist”. And the 50-year-old American has been shaping that image at BMW since 1992. For Bangle, car design is a matter of millimetres, a narrow ridge between good sense and beauty, which he negotiates with pragmatism, passion and in the success lane, as demonstrated by the much sought-after Red Dot Award for Bangle and BMW as Design Team of the Year 2007. www.bmw.de
RALPH DOMMERMUTH, INTERNET MANAGER
Just how successful you can be with mailboxes is proven by Ralph Dommermuth, manager of one of the largest virtual post offices. Millions of German email postboxes belong to his company. Dommermuth is Germany’s Mister Internet. United Internet, the listed company set up in leisurely Montabaur by this trained banker in his early 40s, offers several email services, distributes fast internet connections or stores websites on powerful servers. His customers like to surf, Dommermuth likes to sail. In 2007 he was the main sponsor of the first ever German team to take part in the America’s Cup. www.united-internet.de
